Latest News

BOA Educational Courses

Training Orthopaedic Education Supervisors (TOES)

Thanks to Lisa Hadfield-Law for an enormously successful succession of regional TOES courses to support the launch of the new curriculum in 2021. Over 400 of you took advantage of the opportunity to brush up on your skills, which was wonderful to see. We have four dates for the small-group virtual TOES courses in 2022. For more information or to book, please visit www.boa.ac.uk/toes.

Training Orthopaedic Trainers (TOTs)

The underlying premise of TOTs is, if T&O trainers understand how people learn and how the T&O curriculum works, by translating that understanding into action, they can improve their teaching. It is taught through a mixture of live online sessions as well as personal learning outside of fixed times. Further information or to book is available at www.boa.ac.uk/tots.

SAS Professional Development Programme

The third session of our new SAS professional development programme, ‘Stepping up to the Training Plate’, is scheduled to take place on 15th March. This follows on from ‘Polishing your Portfolio’ and ‘Selecting and Engaging with Mentors, Supervisors and Sponsors’ to round off an insightful series led by Grey Giddins and Lisa Hadfield-Law. We will be using the feedback we get from you to develop and improve the SAS professional development programme, so do please get in touch with any comments to policy@boa.ac.uk.

Law for Orthopaedic Surgeons

This year will also see the return of the very popular 'Law for Orthopaedic Surgeons – Avoiding Jeopardy' course after a sell-out debut in 2021. Highlights of last year included Safe Social Media, Dos and Don’ts in court and the mock Coroner’s inquest. To see the 2022 programme, please visit www.boa.ac.uk/law-for-orthopaedic-surgeons.

Peripheral Nerve Injury BOAST

The BOA have recently published a new Trauma BOAST (BOA Standard) on Peripheral Nerve Injury. The Peripheral Nerve Injury BOAST was jointly developed by the BOA, the British Association of Plastic Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons (BAPRAS), the British Society for Surgery of the Hand (BSSH), and the Orthopaedic Trauma Society (OTS). You can read the full document here at www.boa.ac.uk/peripheral-nerve-injury. All BOASTs – including Trauma, Elective and Speciality – can be found on the BOA website at www.boa.ac.uk/boasts.

National Hip Fracture Database (NHFD) Report

The latest NHFD annual report was published in October 2021 and is available on the NHFD website: www.nhfd.co.uk/20/hipfractureR.nsf/docs/reports2021.

Committee Appointments

Following a successful round of applications, the BOA would like to congratulate all those who have been appointed onto the BOA Committees:

Orthopaedic Committee

Nick Aresti (Vice Chair)

Research Committee

Arul Ramasamy (SAC Research Lead)

Medico-legal Committee

Simon Britten (Chair)

Stephen Hepple

Sameer Singh

Trauma Committee

Will Eardley (Vice Chair)

Iain McFadyen

Bilal Jamal

RSPA Regional Vacancies

As part of the BOA Get Involved Initiative, the BOA and RCS England are seeking Regional Speciality Professional Advisors (RSPAs) to improve local standards and share service delivery in the UK. Current vacancies and how to apply can be found at: www.boa.ac.uk/rspa.

BOA Wellbeing Resources

The BOA has a number of resources to help ensure we also look after ourselves as well as caring for our patients. Recent times have been especially challenging and we should all occasionally take time to check how we are feeling and to ensure we are ‘ok’. View personal wellbeing stories and access other resources available on the BOA website at www.boa.ac.uk/wellbeing.

BOA/ORUK Research Fellowships

We are very excited that the inaugural BOA & Orthopaedic Research UK (ORUK) joint research fellowship scheme is open for applications until 24th March. This new pilot scheme will award two fellowships of up to £65k for a project in any area of orthopaedics. Funding will be available for salary (maximum £60k) or as a stipend at UKRI levels. BOA members at any trainee grade and SAS surgeons are invited to apply. To support diversity and inclusion within trauma and orthopaedics, we encourage applications from individuals that wish to undertake their research flexibly or less than full-time (minimum 0.5 FTE). More information at: www.boa.ac.uk/researchfellowships.

UKITE 2021

We had an excellent turn out of over 800 trainees from across the UK and Ireland for UKITE in December 2021. They were joined by 184 candidates from Malta and South Africa, a record number of international delegates. Congratulations to Wales, who were the highest scoring training programme this year with an average score of 60% for the 34 trainees who took part.

We couldn’t put UKITE together without our excellent team of editors and subspecialty leads who write and select the questions. Thank you all for your contributions. If you’re interested in getting involved for this year, you can find out more information www.boa.ac.uk/ukite or email ukite@boa.ac.uk.

Incoming Honorary Secretary – Fergal Monsell

I was born in Dublin and emigrated to England shortly before the World Cup last came home. I graduated without distinction from the Welsh National School of Medicine, completing higher surgical training in Manchester and fellowship training in Sydney. I was appointed to the Consultant staff at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children in 2005 and I am involved in the management of paediatric patients with a special interest in limb deformity and trauma.

I am visiting Professor at Cardiff University, King James IV Professor in 2018 and have a longstanding interest in education. I have made a slightly greater than average contribution to the canon of lower-level evidence as a hobby researcher.

I have been a BOA member since 1990, an ABC travelling fellow in 2000 and was an elected BOA Trustee 2018-2021. My tenure on Council was defined by the COVID-19 pandemic and I had the opportunity to contribute to the Trauma and Elective committees, diversity agenda and production of all BOASTs published during this period. I was elected Honorary Secretary in 2021 and hope that this will enable me to continue to give something back to the Association and its members.

2022 Council and Presidential Nominations

Attention Home Fellows – Council Trustee and Presidential nominations open on 15th March!

The BOA believes that Trauma and Orthopaedics should be an inclusive surgical profession that inspires, attracts and retains the best talent from a wide variety of backgrounds. One of the ways we believe we can best make that a reality is by ensuring we elect a Council that fully represents all our members and better reflects the broad and diverse population we serve.

You have the opportunity to bring your skills and expertise to help us grow and develop the BOA and Trauma and Orthopaedics as a whole. A more diverse BOA, and a broader range of voices, better serves our patients and best supports our colleagues and we welcome applications from across our membership.

Please be sure to submit your nominations for Council before the deadline of 15th April and for BOA President by 1st June.

More information and how to apply is available on the BOA nominations website at www.mi-nomination.com/BOA.

Elective Care Recovery Plan

In February the Government published its plan for recovery of elective surgery for NHS England which is available to view on the NHS England website. You can read the BOA’s response on our website at www.boa.ac.uk/elective-recovery-plan.